House Sails Out of Sight Pbk

On first read, this debut collection is likely to confound. Using deceptively simple language, Mills refigures reality through his own skewed vision, his poems mirroring a mind caught between the logic of the conscious and the disorder of the unconscious. These abstruse works are nevertheless worth the effort, giving a unique spin on the quandary of living in an inexplicable world. About the depth of consciousness, for instance, Mills writes, ``All goes well in midair / until I look down. / Meditation has no bottom.'' The poet is both delighted by and fearful of the infinity of the mind, using snow to represent his ambivalence: ``She reaches out to touch / the man of snow. / Love of a snowman / has her hands in mittens.'' Mills is also concerned with the tenuous nature of identity amid the ``ravenous lights and shadows'' of the universe. Are we really what we see when we look in the mirror? he asks. Feeling like a mere organism thrown every which way by internal and external forces, the poet must ``occasionally . . . leave the house / and hug an oak as if to learn / how to stand still / among simple variations of sky.'' (Nov.)